Venkatraman Gopalan - Associate Professor, Penn State University Park

Book Title: Of Human Bondage

Author: Somerset Maugham

Book Description:

Philip Carey's life has such a rich range of experiences, that though the details have become somewhat blurred over the years, the broad strokes of his life are still deeply etched in my memory. I recently re-read it. I understand when Maugham says,"It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic," when you are forced to sometimes acknowledge the hard truths in life. Yet, I am slowly coming to believe that these two qualities need not be apart when beauty is sought in unconditional truth, however hard it may be to acknowledge. Our universe, like Phillips life, is a complex, intense and beautiful puzzle, and we, its pieces, must ponder the big picture, upon every occurrence in it, and what our place and role in it may be.